New Energy, Old Problems

by Handsome Matt

If you were to draw a rough line around the Saharan and Sub-Saharan region of Africa; you would have circled the renewable energy equivalent to the Middle East.

The sun that shines and the wind that blows across the dunes of the Saharan desert could power a large chunk of the world. On its own.

Or to put it into perspective:

That’s all that’s needed regarding solar panels.

Here’s where it gets a bit rough.

The record for the First World in Africa is spotty at best. That’s a lie: it’s down right atrocious. For example, many of the ecological issues in Western Africa were a result of the intensive farming methods of the French Colonists. Think Sierra Leon and C’ote De Ivory.

We have the third world once again sitting on tremendous potential wealth and resources. I have a sneaking suspicion that our clean energy generated there will be tainted.

It’s no different than what is occurring now. Things need to change across the board, and my personal belief is that it needs to start with our understanding of humanities place in the natural order. We’ve developed this sense of being above it. When we understand how truly interconnected we are things will start to change.

As far as Africa is concerned, the problems are immense: however with the sun’s life expectancy to be roughly 4 billion more years, the nations of Saharan and sub-saharan Africa have the luxury of time to let foreign powers build and develop these systems, and then nationalize them at a later date. Unfortunately the “thug” governments exist because of our various interventions throughout the years: and the fact that most money from business in Africa, never trickles down. This is a situation where the money could stay in Africa,and be used to develop infrastructure, schools, properly train police, etc etc etc.

The issues you mention all exist currently in some way shape or form, we might as well have clean energy be the output instead of what currently exists.